Comparing Smith's 'Pocahontas: The Life And The Legend'

Improved Essays
Smith provides a truthful account of his experiences and explorations, while myths were made up by individuals who wish to establish some emotion and romance into early American history. The myths are created to romanticize the Smith and Pocahontas into a courting couple who fell in love in order to bring the two cultures together. Pocahontas’ age is raised to make the story rich with romance and compatibility between the two. This idealizes the relationship and creates a view of how the natives and colonists can get along and interact with each other. It brings together two worlds that have entirely different views and beliefs on life and how to respond to outside forces. Frances Mossiker, the author of Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend …show more content…
He frankly spoke about the incompetence of the Virginia Company’s leadership, which hurt his chances to elevate his reputation. In Percy’s writings, he “corroborates and even adds to Smith’s criticisms of the colonists and other leaders in order to make himself seem less responsible for the colony’s misery” (Lehman 237). Additionally, he spoke out about the company’s main goal of seeking gold and abusing the undeveloped land without much regard for the consequences. Alden Vaughn describes Smith’s characteristics as, “a hard-working, hard-fighting soldier who cared deeply about his nation’s expansion into the forests of America and who recorded its progress as faithfully as he could” and because of this “America found a prototype of itself: bold, energetic, and optimist; at the same time brass, intolerant, overly proud of its achievements, and overly solicitous of approval” (190). Surprisingly, Smith was only in America for two years, but in those few years while he was there, he managed to establish a surviving colony and create an ongoing legacy which shows him to be one of the best representatives of America’s

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Jamestown Savior’s Did John Smith or John Rolfe save the Jamestown colony? There are many different beliefs on this topic; both leaders had their own impacts on the survival of Jamestown. The Jamestown settlers went through many struggling events and needed a leader to overcome them. Even in today's time a leader is still present and needed, it is always good to have someone take charge in daring times. Jamestown was a large step for man in the race to colonize the “ New World” however, in many times it was close to failing.…

    • 1539 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In my opinion I think Pocahontas did save John Smith’s life. John Smith published a new version of True Relation. He wrote that Pocahontas risked her life to save his. John Smith expands his story in general history. The emperor welcomed John Smith with food and good words.…

    • 101 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Rhetorical Précis Writing In his “General History of Virginia” (1624), John Smith implies that he is writing to recruit additional people from England to further colonize the Americas. Smith demonstrates this argument by engaging the desires of the general public of England- religion, prosperity, and autonomy- by using forced teaming. He embellishes parts of his story in order to insinuate glory and adventure, to guarantee employment and self-sufficiency, and to convey that God desired them to depart from England and create a contemporary life in the New World. Smith seemingly speaks to the inhabitants of England not only because he conveys points that could inadvertently influence their desires for autonomy, religion, and prosperity, but…

    • 133 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Smith Dbq

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Although John Smith and William Bradford were instrumental to the founding and development of the colonies in the new world, their writings reveal differences in personality, with John Smith being arrogant and self-centered and William Bradford being focused on the greater community which ultimately makes them very different leaders. Smith’s, The General History of Virginia, makes himself seem like the hero of Jamestown, even if it meant stretching the truth. In his account he wrote, “committed the managing of all things abroad to Captain John Smith… himself always bearing the greatest task.” This illustrates the exaggeration and arrogance in his writing because he speaks about himself in third person and he tells the reader he always took…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Both History of Virginia and Description of New England were written by John Smith as a way to entice Englishmen to the New World; however, Smith's writing style and tone differ depending on the piece and what they are aiming to convey. In History of Virginia, Smith uses the third person narrative and dark humor in order to sell himself as a leader. By speaking in third person, John Smith is able to mention the problems of the colonies in the New World while staying detached from all blame, inadvertently making himself look better. He is able to accuse the other "captains" of making careless, easily avoidable errors that eventually lead to their demise, and not be associated with their mistakes. Furthermore, Smith utilizes diction to establish a tone of dark humor.…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In this chapter, Richter uses three stories to talk about how the Native Americans dealt with the bringing in of material items, and how they tried to bring Europeans into their world on their terms. The story of “Pocahontas” showed things were different in the aspect that the Native Americans never harmed the Europeans. They captured John Smith and some of his men, but their lives were never in danger. The Native Americans tried to find peace with the Europeans; however, they went and captured Pocahontas. Richter wrote that it might have been possible for the Native Americans to assimilate into European culture, and they might have been able to have the Europeans not tried to force the Native Americans into having the same culture as…

    • 1531 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Massachusetts and Virginia Colonies had many similarities, but often times we get the question concerning which colony benefited the United States better from an historical formation. The one who “created the corporate trading and colonizing company” (Cheyney 148) or the one who seeked “purity” (Cheyney 148). You begin to compare the two colonies. Taking everything into deeper thinking. Out of the two original colonies which one had a greater impact on the world?…

    • 1086 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The story of Pocahontas and the colony isn’t some Disney happily ever after story, there was war, murder, spies, the struggle of surviving and many other things. There is nothing happy in the true story of the Indians and the…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mary Rowlandson, born 1637, a Puritan minister’s wife, age 73, of Massachusetts, passed away peacefully in a small ceremony on January 5, 1711. Leaving behind two children and one daughter who sadly perished in the infamous Indian raid. She is most famous for her spiritually autobiographical captivity narrative, a true historical account of Native American captivity which became a bestselling novel during the 17th century. Mary’s writing style propelled this popular subject matter to heights by driving home the concept of colonial racial superiority. Her importance to history comes from the aftermath of King Philip’s War (aka Metacom’s Rebellion).…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1.)John Smith was one of the first leaders in the New World and established the American archetype of a hard working hero. In order to attract more people to Virginia and New England John Smith wrote two pieces called "History of Virginia" and "Description on New England. Smith's first piece told the story of Jamestown and how badly the settlers suffered after Smith left them under the control of weak leadership. Smiths second piece vividly describes the plentiful resources in New England and how much money there was to be made through colonization. History of Virginia is written in the third person which is interesting because one usually doesn't talk about themselves in that point of view.…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    “Serving Time in Virginia” endeavors seeks to explainshow the importance of perspective and point of view in the reading and writing of history. A historian has to determine ask the question of whether a source’s claims and explanations are biased by the author, even if not done so on purpose. The author explains, through an investigation into the downfall of Virginia Colony, how a historian must remove this layer of perspective from the information to discover history’s secrets. First, the author critiques the commonly known story of John Smith, a man supposedly saved by Pocahontas from execution.…

    • 1575 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Smith and William Bradford are both great leader in “New World”; they both attracted settlers with their documents; they both writers; they…

    • 403 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the early 1600’s, there were two settlers, John Smith and William Bradford who came from England. In William Bradford's and Johns Smiths journal, it talks about the difficult lifestyle and the struggles of making new life in America. Although both journals and colonies share some similarities, they both also came across some differences. John smith came to the new world to seek for money while William Bradford came seeking for religious freedom and worship.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In Pocahontas they show six men arrive at America and imply that was all the men to have originally ventured out into America. The Englishmen started their journey with two false conceptions. One, that there was gold, and two, that the indians, or native americans, would help them find it. This, the movie portrays accurately. What the movie fails to accurately depict is that the native americans were being killed off with disease infected blankets given to them by the English settlers.…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While she stays busy as a professor in history at Rutgers in New Jersey, Townsend has found the time to write Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma as well as four other distinguished works, most dealing in the focus on Native American people, their societies and structure. Townsend was first awarded for her work in 1993 with the Fullbright Commission grant and her other accomplishments include that of the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2004 and the Guggenheim Fellowship in…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays